Word: philmont
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Nationally, scouting faces an equally rugged journey. Like the 17,500 hikers who passed through Philmont this past summer, the highly traditional movement has been forced in recent years to shed some flab and check its compass. Static enrollments five years ago persuaded the national office in Irving, Texas, to commission a marketing study, which concluded that the Boy Scouts were dangerously out of step with post-1960s America; the public still imagined uniformed do-gooders who tie knots and help old folks across the street. One solution: the Scout Handbook was revised to show more minority scouts in action...
...Philmont trek provides a deceptively casual scenario for such transition. Changing history is evident in the area's visitors. Spanish conquistadores and American pioneers passed through. Trekkers carrying side arms have included Kit Carson and, more recently, eagle scout and FBI Director William Sessions, who brought along pistol-packing bodyguards. In recent years women have become active in the formerly all-male backcountry. Two of 501's adult leaders are female, as are 20 of Philmont's 185 rangers who hike for two days with each group to help launch the trip successfully. Environmental pressures are being felt as well...
...dinner and strung over a 20-ft.-high cable. Nighttime hygiene is discouraged; a freshened-up camper in a sleeping bag is yet another smellable. Breakfast is scheduled soon after a groggy, wet dawn so hikers can cover ground before the occasionally terrifying thunderstorms hit. Lightning killed scouts at Philmont...
...eagle scout and psychology student from Kansas, observes privately that the troop's adults and boys communicate poorly. "Things get left unsaid," he explains. Staff members at base camp tell of a stressed-out troop that tied one of its hikers to a tree earlier this year. Philmont chaplain Rusty Cowden, 38, remembers his own trek in 1967: "We got lost. A bear ate our food, and it rained 11 out of 12 days." But Cowden recalls the trip joyously. Coping with blisters, bears and soggy meals somehow adds texture to the chill of windy mountaintops and the sight...
...hike leads to a cattle ranch set in a lush green valley. At that campfire, a talented cowboy-guitarist nicknamed Fluffy performs the Oreo Cookie Blues, which he describes as a "song of addiction." Next morning the scouts heat irons to mark their hiking boots and hats with Philmont's brand: a P and "crazy" (backward) S under...